Like a Rolling Stone
1965 · From Highway 61 Revisited
A snare crack, a sneer, and Kooper's uninvited organ swirling through the song that split rock open.
★ 10.0
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1965
Showing 117 works across all media from 1965
(I Can't Get No) SatisfactionThe Rolling Stones
(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction
1965 · From Out of Our Heads
Keith dreamt the fuzz riff, taped it half-asleep, and woke up holding the sound of teenage frustration.
★ 9.8
Highway 61 Revisited
1965
Al Kooper was not the organ player and sat down at it anyway, which is the sound everybody remembers from Like a Rolling Stone.
★ 9.8
Yesterday
1965 · From Help!
McCartney dreamt the melody, called it "Scrambled Eggs" for weeks, then let a string quartet make it immortal.
★ 9.5
The Sound of Silence
1965
A folk flop until a producer secretly overdubbed electric guitars, and the duo heard their number one on the radio.
★ 9.4
Rubber Soul
1965
Norwegian Wood has the first sitar on a pop record. The stretched cover photograph happened when a slide slipped during the projection.
★ 9.3
Papa's Got a Brand New Bag
1965 · From Papa's Got a Brand New Bag
The record where the beat moved to the one and funk quietly began. James Brown never looked back.
★ 9.1
In My Life
1965 · From Rubber Soul
Lennon's first draft listed bus stops in Liverpool; Martin's piano solo, taped at half speed, sounds baroque.
★ 9.0
Bringing It All Back Home
1965
One side plugged in, one side not. A few months later Dylan took the electric half to Newport and the folk crowd turned on him.
★ 8.9
I Got You (I Feel Good)
1965 · From I Got You (I Feel Good)
Brown recycled a flop he'd cut on Yvonne Fair, added Maceo Parker's alto, and landed his highest-charting single.
★ 8.8
My GenerationThe Who
My Generation
1965 · From My Generation
Entwistle's bass solo needed a Fender after his Danelectro strings snapped, and Daltrey stuttered his way into history.
★ 8.7
A Love Supreme, Part 1: Acknowledgement
1965 · From A Love Supreme
Garrison's four notes, then Coltrane overdubbing the chant nineteen times, one December day at Van Gelder's.
★ 8.6
Mr. Tambourine Man (The Byrds)
1965 · From Mr. Tambourine Man
Session men cut the track and McGuinn's twelve-string Rickenbacker rang over one Dylan verse; folk rock started there.
★ 8.3
The Autobiography of Malcolm X
Malcolm X and Alex Haley
1965 · 528 pages
Malcolm X was a Michigan boy, then a Harlem hustler, then a convict copying the dictionary, then a speaker no one in America could ignore. He was still changing when he was murdered.
★ 8.3
The Tracks of My Tears
1965
Tarplin brought the guitar figure first, Robinson and Moore wrote words to it, and Motown got its saddest smile.
★ 8.1
People Get ReadyThe Impressions
People Get Ready
1965
Mayfield turned the gospel train of the spirituals into a civil rights hymn, and King used it to steady marchers.
★ 8.0
Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)
1965 · From Rubber Soul
Harrison's sitar, widely reckoned the first on a rock record, and Lennon smuggling an affair past everyone.
★ 7.9
I Put a Spell on You
1965
Simone had trained to be a classical pianist and was turned down by the conservatory. You can hear the Bach in her left hand throughout.
★ 7.9
Reach Out, I'll Be There
1965
Holland-Dozier-Holland pitched Stubbs at the very top of his range, and Paul Riser opened it with piccolo and flute.
★ 7.8
California Dreamin'
1965 · From If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears
The Phillipses wrote it homesick in a New York winter, and Doherty sang over Barry McGuire's existing backing track.
★ 7.8
In the Midnight Hour
1965
Jerry Wexler danced the Jerk across the Stax floor until the band pushed the backbeat onto beat two.
★ 7.8
Stoner
1965 · 278 pages
Sent to study agriculture, a Missouri farm boy falls for English literature instead and never leaves the university. Williams makes an unremarkable life, badly used by everyone in it, hold you completely.
★ 7.8
Feeling Good
1965 · From I Put a Spell on You
Written for a Newley and Bricusse musical, it opens with nothing but her voice before Hal Mooney's horns land.
★ 7.7
Help!
1965 · From Help!
Twelve takes in April 1965, McCartney's counter-melody chasing the lead, and Lennon insisting years later the plea was real.
★ 7.7
I Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch)
1965
Dozier lifted the title from his grandfather flirting in a beauty shop, and Stubbs sings it like a plea.
★ 7.7
Unchained Melody
1965
Written for a 1955 prison film, buried on a B-side, and Hatfield sang the whole thing alone.
★ 7.7
Stop! In the Name of Love
1965
By Dozier's account the title came from a motel argument; Paul Williams supplied the hand at a rehearsal.
★ 7.6
I've Been Loving You Too Long (to Stop Now)
1965 · From Otis Blue
Butler handed Redding a fragment in a Buffalo motel room; two weeks later Stax had the ultimate slow dance.
★ 7.6
Ticket to Ride
1965 · From Help!
Cut at EMI in February 1965, with Harrison's Rickenbacker riff and a record Lennon later called the first heavy metal.
★ 7.5
Otis Blue
1965
Recorded in a single twenty-four-hour stretch, with a break so the musicians could play their regular Saturday gigs, and three Sam Cooke songs on it.
★ 7.5
How does it feel To be on your own With no direction home A complete unknown Like a rolling stone?
Like a Rolling Stone · 1965
California GirlsThe Beach Boys
California Girls
1965 · From Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!)
Forty-four takes for the backing track, Hal Blaine and Carol Kaye on it, and an intro built like a fanfare.
★ 7.4
Sinnerman
1965 · From Pastel Blues
Simone learned it at her mother's revival meetings and stretched it past ten minutes of piano vamp and handclaps.
★ 7.4
Desolation Row
1965 · From Highway 61 Revisited
Eleven minutes, one acoustic guitar, and Charlie McCoy improvising fills after Bob Johnston found him passing through New York.
★ 7.3
The Times They Are a-Changin' (song) · 1965
We Gotta Get Out of This Place
1965
Chandler's bass walks in alone, Burdon arrives furious, and GIs in Vietnam claimed a Brill Building demo.
★ 7.3
The Sound of Music
Directed by Robert Wise
1965
It saved a studio from bankruptcy and has never left the culture since: Salzburg in the mountains, a nun who cannot behave, and songs everyone somehow already knows.
★ 7.2
Turn! Turn! Turn!
1965 · From Turn! Turn! Turn!
Seeger set Ecclesiastes to a tune in 1959; McGuinn's twelve-string turned it into the number one with the oldest lyrics.
★ 7.0